(Press-News.org) Participating in community service activities and helping others is not just good for the soul; it has a healing effect that helps alcoholics and other addicts become and stay sober, a researcher from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine reports.
In a review article published in the Volume 29 issue of Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, Maria E. Pagano, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine, sheds light on the role of helping in addiction recovery, using the program of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) as a prime example. She cites a growing body of research as supporting evidence.
"The research indicates that getting active in service helps alcoholics and other addicts become sober and stay sober, and suggests this approach is applicable to all treatment-seeking individuals with a desire to not drink or use drugs," Dr. Pagano says. "Helping others in the program of AA has forged a therapy based on the kinship of common suffering and has vast potential."
In her research, Dr. Pagano highlights the helper therapy principle (HTP), a concept embodied by AA, as a means of diminishing egocentrism or selfishness, a root cause of addiction. The HTP is based on the theory that, when a person helps another individual with a similar condition, they help themselves.
The principle is reflected in the stated purpose of AA, which is to help individuals "stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety." Helping other alcoholics is viewed as the foundation for the alcoholic helper to stay on the path to recovery, Dr. Pagano says in her overview of the AA program.
In addition to outlining the basis for AA-related helping, Dr. Pagano reviews the data to date that illustrates the health and mental health benefits derived from helping others. She likewise examines several empirical studies she conducted previously which show how helping others in 12-step programs of recovery help the recovering individual to stay sober.
The research includes a 2004 study by Dr. Pagano and her colleagues. Using data from Project MATCH, one of the largest clinical trials in alcohol research, the investigators determined that 40 percent of the alcoholics who helped other alcoholics during their recovery successfully avoided drinking in the 12 months following three months in chemical dependency treatment, whereas only 22 percent of those that did not help others stayed sober.
A subsequent study by Dr. Pagano and her colleagues in 2009, also involving data from Project MATCH, showed that 94 percent of alcoholics who helped other alcoholics, at any point during the 15-month study, continued to do so as part of their ongoing recovery, and experienced lower levels of depression. Similarly, a study of alcoholic patients with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), a condition in which a person is excessively preoccupied with a perceived physical defect, found that those who helped others were more likely to become sober and enjoy an improved self-image than non-helpers.
"These studies indicate that among alcoholics, AA-related helping and giving general help to others has positive effects on drinking outcomes and mental health variables," Dr. Pagano says in the Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly journal.
In fact, the benefits of doing good works and helping others also extend to individuals coping with chronic conditions like depression, AIDS, and chronic pain. "When humans help others regardless of a shared condition, they appear to live longer and happier lives," she adds.
The benefits of helping are significant because the costs of alcoholism and drug addiction to society are so great, Dr. Pagano says. In light of recent health care reform, resources which can reduce these costs and suffering are crucial.
However, the lack of consensus on what peer helping is in addiction recovery requires additional study to clarify what specific behaviors to encourage, to whom and what forms of service to recommend for individuals engaging in early and ongoing recovery. Dr. Pagano is presently conducting a longitudinal study examining the role of service in adolescent addiction recovery. An area of new scientific discovery, she's applying the knowledge she's accrued with adults to adolescent populations with addition.
###
About Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Founded in 1843, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine is the largest medical research institution in Ohio and is among the nation's top medical schools for research funding from the National Institutes of Health. The School of Medicine is recognized throughout the international medical community for outstanding achievements in teaching. The School's innovative and pioneering Western Reserve2 curriculum interweaves four themes--research and scholarship, clinical mastery, leadership, and civic professionalism--to prepare students for the practice of evidence-based medicine in the rapidly changing health care environment of the 21st century. Eleven Nobel Laureates have been affiliated with the school.
Annually, the School of Medicine trains more than 800 M.D. and M.D./Ph.D. students and ranks in the top 20 among U.S. research-oriented medical schools as designated by U.S. News & World Report "Guide to Graduate Education."
The School of Medicine's primary affiliate is University Hospitals Case Medical Center and is additionally affiliated with MetroHealth Medical Center, the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and the Cleveland Clinic, with which it established the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University in 2002. http://casemed.case.edu.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---DNA, that marvelous, twisty molecule of life, has an alter ego, research at the University of Michigan and the University of California, Irvine reveals.
On rare occasions, its building blocks "rock and roll," deforming the familiar double helix into a different shape.
"We show that the simple DNA double helix exists in an alternative form---for one percent of the time---and that this alternative form is functional," said Hashim M. Al-Hashimi, who is the Robert L. Kuczkowski Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Biophysics at U-M. "Together, these ...
DETROIT – Using a novel surgical approach, it's possible to rebuild the trachea and preserve a patient's voice after removing an invasive throat tumor, according to a new report from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
This case study is the first of its kind to not only document a successful technique to create a fully functional trachea, or windpipe, but also report a rare type of malignant tumor in an adult's trachea. Most commonly, this type of tumor is seen in newborns and very rarely occurs in the neck, says lead study author Samer Al-Khudari, M.D., with the Department ...
Montreal, January 28, 2011 – The mystery began in 1976. Adolfo Pampena was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that caused a strange combination of symptoms and was associated with the occurrence of multiple tumours in his stomach and colon. His medical team was stumped and was unable to answer the most important questions for him and his family: the cause of his disease and the risk for future generations.
Now, 35 years later, the answers are at hand thanks to a genetic study led by investigators at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI ...
It is well known that teenagers take risks — and that when they do, they like to have company. Teens are five times more likely to be in a car accident when in a group than when driving alone, and they are more likely to commit a crime in a group.
Now, a new study sheds light on why.
Temple University psychologists Jason Chein and Laurence Steinberg set out to measure brain activity in adolescents, alone and with peers, as they made decisions with inherent risks. Their findings, published this month in Developmental Science, demonstrate that when teens are with friends ...
What sounds like science fiction is actually possible: thanks to magnetic stimulation, the activity of certain brain nerve cells can be deliberately influenced. What happens in the brain in this context has been unclear up to now. Medical experts from Bochum under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Klaus Funke (Department of Neurophysiology) have now shown that various stimulus patterns changed the activity of distinct neuronal cell types. In addition, certain stimulus patterns led to rats learning more easily. The knowledge obtained could contribute to cerebral stimulation being ...
Toronto – Will Academy Award nominees Nicole Kidman and Annette Bening be at higher risk for a divorce if they win the Oscar for best actress next month? A long line of best actress winners including Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Halle Berry and Kate Winslet experienced the end of their marriages not long after taking home their awards. A study by researchers at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management and Carnegie Mellon University finds that Oscar winners in the Best Actress category are at a higher risk of divorce than nominees who do not win. By contrast, ...
The rise of social media has allowed people to connect and re-connect with friends, colleagues and family from across the world. A new paper by University of Minnesota computer scientists in the College of Science and Engineering provides insights into how the analysis of our social networking interactions could discover things like the emergence or decline of leadership, changes in trust over time, and migration and mobility within particular communities online.
The paper, "Computational Modeling of Spatio-temporal Social Networks: A Time-Aggregated Graph Approach," ...
LOS ANGELES (January 27, 2011) – A team of researchers led by Vicente Gilsanz, MD, PhD, director of Clinical Imaging at The Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles, determined that the onset of puberty was the primary influence on adult bone mineral density, or bone strength. Length of puberty did not affect bone density.
Reduced bone mineral density leads to osteoporosis, resulting in bones becoming increasingly brittle and at risk for fracture. Osteoporosis is a significant public health issue with the cost of treatment in 2010 estimated at ...
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– The increased frequency of drought observed in Eastern Africa over the last 20 years is likely to continue as long as global temperatures continue to rise, according to UC Santa Barbara scientist Park Williams.
The new research, published in Climate Dynamics, indicates that more drought poses increased risk to millions of people in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia, who currently face potential food shortages.
"Forecasting precipitation variability from year to year is difficult, and research on the links between global change and precipitation ...
A little disorder goes a long way, especially when it comes to harnessing the sun's energy. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) jumbled the atomic structure of the surface layer of titanium dioxide nanocrystals, creating a catalyst that is both long lasting and more efficient than all other materials in using the sun's energy to extract hydrogen from water.
Their photocatalyst, which accelerates light-driven chemical reactions, is the first to combine durability and record-breaking efficiency, making it ...
